


In the Woods Somewhere

by braadvengolor



Category: Just Roll With It (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Blood, Knowing me, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Taxi is a cryptid, but will b in later chapters w warning, kinda went ham on the blood, like a lot of blood, other than that, sorry i am terrible at tagging things, violence is NOT in the 1st chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24810010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braadvengolor/pseuds/braadvengolor
Summary: Br’aad goes for his first solo hunt and comes back with a bit more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Taxi/Br'aad Vengolor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	1. Blood in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this idea rattling around in my brain for months and I needed to get it out here. 
> 
> Check out the Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6FLJhueUWLRwyRZ2ycpD0t?si=JL6EgRaBSEe7K4gOGSPMUA
> 
> Spotify playlist is a work in progress, I’ll be adding stuff to it as I go.

Something is different about the forest. It’s quiet like it always is, but there’s an uncertain element hanging in the air. Maybe it’s just his nerves, maybe it’s the fact that he’s never been hunting in the woods alone before. Br’aad’s breath comes out shakily and his grip tightens against the smooth wood of the hunting rifle in his hands. Surely his breathing is shaky because he’s cold. Surely. 

Even so, something is off. The sound of his boots swishing quietly through the knee-deep snow as he treks deeper and deeper into the woods no longer brings him the quiet comfort it once did. The all-encompassing silence unnerves him. Last night’s snowfall rests gently in the boughs of the trees, silently threatening to fall at any disturbance. 

This deep in the woods, one has to be careful. There’s no one around to help you if you get lost, there’s no way to call for help. There’s no cell service out here, you’d have to go at least a couple miles for that. Out here there’s nothing but you, your gun, and mother nature. 

Br’aad still needs to go at least another quarter mile to get into halfway decent deer hunting territory. He’s not exactly sure how far he is from home, this far out it all starts to blend together. Nothing but miles and miles of pines and snow. That’s why Sylnan taught him never to hunt when it’s snowing— you need your footprints to know how to get back. If you get lost in the woods in the dead of winter, chances are that’s the last time you’ll ever get lost. Even though his brain is screaming at him to turn around, Br’aad knows he has to keep pressing forward. 

After a few more minutes, Br’aad finds himself at the edge of a clearing. The pines are a bit thinner here, and some sunlight is able to glint off of the snow. Being in the open is a bit more reassuring, but still something feels off. Br’aad’s stomach turns as he scans the opposite edge of the forest. Nothing is amiss, nothing moves in the forest but the wind through the trees. Clouds of powdery snow drift gently out of the branches and briefly obscure the path ahead.

Despite the fact that he's wearing enough layers to make walking stiff and awkward, the winter wind still whips right through him. His fingers are freezing. He knows he should sling his rifle back over his shoulder and put the safety back on, but there’s still that foreboding in the air, that unshakeable malaise. He holds the rifle closer to his chest and keeps moving forward.

Just on the other side of the clearing he sees something moving. A fox, pawing at something up ahead. It’s unusual to see a fox in the daytime, Br’aad pauses a moment to watch it. Only when he stops to rest does he notice something else, another path in the snow. He’s certain it’s not his path. If not his, then whose? Br’aad makes his way over to the path and notices yet another thing.

Blood. 

Crimson red making a striking contrast against the pure white of the freshly fallen snow. The blood is still that bright, candy apple red that fresh blood is. There’s not too much of it, just the occasional drip here and there along the path. Whatever made this trail is almost definitely the very thing that the fox is currently trying to get a bite of. 

Br’aad’s mind is racing. The snow is too deep, he isn’t close enough to get a look at whatever is lying in the snow. Whatever it is, the impression it made in the snow is certainly much larger than a rabbit. Maybe someone else had shot a deer and hadn’t killed it. As if struck by lightning, Br’aad remembers what everyone at school had been gossiping about right when school came back after winter break. 

Robert Thomas. Robert Thomas had gone missing over the break. Robert Thomas still hadn’t been found. Robert Thomas is (or now maybe _was_ ) an avid hunter. Robert Thomas was certainly much larger than a rabbit. 

Without thinking, Br’aad fires a round in the general direction of the fox in order to scare it off of what he is now entirely certain is the corpse of Robert Thomas. Br’aad doesn’t notice the ringing in his ears and the way that the entire forest goes silent as the grave as he runs desperately over to the form in the snow. 

He sees the much more substantial pool of blood first. A much deeper and much more sickening red than the small drops in the snow, the light, powdery snow is heavy and wet from the blood. Br’aad and Sylnan had been hunting in these woods for nearly his entire life. He was no stranger to blood. Even so, there is a distinct and irreconcilable difference between the blood of a deer and the blood of another human being. 

Br’aad pauses for a moment. He doesn’t want to see Robert Thomas dead in the snow, he doesn’t want to see Robert Thomas, picked apart by foxes and left to rot, and without a doubt, Br’aad does not want to see the hockey player he totally had a crush on for like three months _alive_ , but just barely. He doesn’t want to have to drag Robert Thomas’ now freshly deceased cadaver home to his hard-working single mother and have to explain to her that while yes, he did find Bobby alive, that he was now very dead. 

But he can’t just _leave_ him there. Cursing under his breath, Br’aad takes a tentative step forward. With his rifle firmly in his hands and his finger on the trigger, Br’aad leans the little bit over it takes for him to be able to clearly see what is lying in the snow. 

“What the fuck is that!?” Br’aad screams into the silent forest. 

Lying in the snow is not, in fact, Robert Thomas. Lying in the snow is an extremely tall and extremely not human figure covered head to toe in a thick coat of russet-red fur. Like bigfoot. Almost. Bigfoot, if bigfoot happened to be a cat. Whatever the fuck this is, it’s very cat-like. It has two pointed ears and an almost lion-like face. Oh, and it’s currently either very dead or very unconscious in the snow. Br’aad isn’t exactly sure which one. 

Br’aad puts the safety on his rifle and slings it on his back. Tentatively, he removes one of his gloves and shoves it into his pocket. He doesn’t really want to touch the cat man. Not because he thinks he’ll get a disease or something, but because he’s very worried that the cat man is dead and that he’s about to touch a very humanoid corpse. 

Obviously, whatever the cat man is, it isn’t fully human. But it appears to be bipedal, and other than the fur, the ears, and the facial structure, it appears very human. He can’t see if it has a tail or not due to the snow, but if he had to make a guess he’d assume that it did. 

With some hesitation, Br’aad plunges his index and pointer finger somewhere around where he guesses that the carotid artery is in an attempt to check if it has a pulse. He wiggles his fingers around a little bit, trying to feel something through the dense fur. After a bit of uncomfortable finger shimmying, Br’aad takes his fingers off of the cat man’s neck and puts his glove back on. Even if it’s not alive, the cat man is certainly still warm.

Br’aad isn’t fully convinced that the cat man is dead. Moving over to be next to it, he crouches down in the snow and tries to inspect and see if it’s breathing. Nervously, he tilts the creature’s head up towards the sky and watches very closely to see if he can see his breath in the freezing winter air. Sure enough, with some awkward maneuvering, Br’aad can see a small plume of fog outlined against the sky. 

All of a sudden Br’aad realizes how much worse this is. Instead of being able to simply leave the cat man there to get eaten by foxes, Br’aad now has to get the extremely injured creature home. There is absolutely no way he is letting this thing die. No fucking way. Not after what he’s about to do. 

Br’aad moves his rifle from its position slung on his back to being against his chest instead. Then, as carefully as he can, he lifts the creature up out of the snow and onto his back. He wraps one arm tightly around one of its legs and the other around one of its arms. It’s heavy, very heavy, and Br’aad is at least half a mile from home. 

Br’aad’s muscles are screaming, pushed to their limits and then some. He tastes blood, his breathing is ragged and irregular, but he still isn’t home yet. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he started walking, he’s been following the path he’d made in the snow for as long as his brain cared to remember. He needs to get home. That’s all he cares about. Home. Getting home. Sylnan will know what to do. 

He pauses for the briefest of moments, lifting his head up slightly, eyes barely focusing on the shapes in the distance. Then he sees it, home. Sylnan. He forces his trembling legs to pick up the pace, his stomach churning as he continues plodding forward. 

His entire body quivering, he takes his final step up onto his and Sylnan’s front porch. His vision starts to go blurry. He lets go of the cat man’s arm, desperately trying to reach out and knock on the front door. His knees give out from under him, he feels his head hit the wood of the porch, and then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is gonna be another long project! :) Enjoy


	2. That’s Gonna Leave a Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: blood
> 
> I describe blood a *lot* in this chapter, so if that makes you uncomfortable maybe skip this one.

Br’aad blinks awake on the floor of his and Sylnan’s house. He feels like shit. His entire body aches, it feels like he just got ran over by a bus. For a brief few seconds he doesn’t remember why he passed out, but then it hits him. The cat man. Oh _shit_ , the fucking cat man. He presses his palms against the hardwood and pushes himself upright. Pain shoots through his exhausted body as he pushes his muscles even further past their limits. 

He looks around frantically, barely taking in his surroundings. Noticing him struggling to get himself up off the floor, Sylnan rushes over to him. He wraps his arms tightly around Br’aad, rocking him gently. 

“You’re okay, oh thank god you’re okay. For a second there I thought you were dead. I mean, I knew you weren’t. I checked your pulse and everything, but you were just lying there crumpled on the porch covered in blood, what else was I supposed to think?” Sylnan says hurriedly, the words falling out of his mouth as his arms continue to tighten around Br’aad’s shoulders. 

“Syl, the cat man,” Br’aad croaks; his voice husky, almost inaudible. 

“I called Vel, she’s on her way. She’ll look over both of you. We… can talk about this later. You need to rest.”

Sylnan’s arms loosen slightly, allowing Br’aad a bit more room to breathe. The two of them sit there like that for a bit. Br’aad wraps his arms around Sylnan as effectively as he can with his limited range of motion and he presses his forehead against Sylnan’s. 

“Hey, I’m okay. Nothing’s gonna happen to me,” he whispers.

Sylnan’s shoulders begin to shake and Br’aad hears his breathing turn ragged.

“I can’t- I can’t lose you too.”

“I’m not going anywhere, promise.”

After a few moments, Sylnan reluctantly unwraps his arms from around Br’aad. He stands up slowly, glancing over at the mess on the kitchen floor. Once clean white tiles now stained sickening red, crimson liquid working its way through the grooves, slowly flowing towards the hardwood floor of the rest of the living room. Sylnan runs his right hand through his dark brown hair and looks back at Br’aad, letting out a deep sigh. 

“Br’aad, what the hell did you bring home?”

Br’aad glances over towards the kitchen. Dirty dishes in the sink, the outdated refrigerator buzzing contentedly away, a thin layer of grime coating the stovetop. The stove hasn’t been cleaned in ages, there’s always something more important to do. Perfectly normal, except for the floor of course. The floor is a mess, and in the middle of the mess is the creature from the forest. 

Its ginger fur is matted with blood, there’s a trail of drops of blood from the front door to the kitchen, and there’s blood pretty much everywhere else as well. Br’aad looks down at his clothes. They, too, are stained with blood. His coat is thrown haphazardly against the corner near the door. Despite the coat, blood still managed to seep down into the layers below. God damn it. They don’t have the money to be buying new coats right now, especially not in the middle of winter. 

He looks back at the cat man, trying to shake the anxieties over his coat. Comfortingly, he can see its chest gently rising and falling. At least he didn’t go nearly half a mile through the woods, carrying that creature on his back the whole way, just to have it die in their kitchen. Its mouth is slightly agape, showing its sharp canines. His brain is fuzzy, and through his exhaustion it’s hard for him to focus his eyes. 

“I’m… not really sure,” Br’aad confesses. 

Sylnan sighs. Before he has a chance to say anything, outside the cabin is the sound of tires on gravel, followed very quickly by the sound of a car door opening and shutting. Velrisa. There’s a loud knock on the front door, but before Sylnan can even react to the knocking, the door opens. 

“The door was unlocked. Where’s the cat?” Velrisa says urgently, scanning the room with her eyes. 

She stands in the doorway, her left hand tightly gripping her medical bag, her right still holding the door open. It’s obvious that she just came from work. She’s still in her scrubs. Pale, minty green making a striking contrast against her dark skin. 

“Kitchen floor,” Sylnan responds, pointing towards the extremely prominent cat man lying prone on the now blood-drenched tiles. 

Velrisa’s eyes dart over to the kitchen, widening when they land on the cat man. She hurries over to the unconscious creature, placing her bag down next to it. She quickly unzips the bag, grabbing a pair of nitrile gloves out of one of the many compartments. 

Br’aad, not yet having regained enough strength to lift himself off the ground, crawls closer to get a better view of what she’s doing. He can barely stand to watch her work. As she works, her pristine white gloves quickly become stained red with blood. 

“Where did you even find this thing? It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” Velrisa asks, not taking her eyes off of her work.

“About half a mile out, I was out hunting and found it injured in the snow,” Br’aad explains. 

“This looks like a bullet wound. Did you do this?” She looks away from the creature just long enough to shoot Br’aad an accusatory glance. 

“Like I said, I found it like that. I was hunting for deer, not… cats.”

She works swiftly, and after assessing the injury and doing what she can to stop the bleeding, she asks Sylnan to help hold the creature upright as she wraps bandages around its midriff. Pale tan slowly turns red as the wound continues to bleed, albeit much slower than before. 

Satisfied with her work, Velrisa zips up her bag and stands up off of the ground. She pulls off her bloodied gloves and picks her bag up off of the floor. She turns to Sylnan.

“You’re going to need to give it antibiotics over the next week or so, and it’ll probably be best to include some kind of painkiller with that as well. I’ll call you to come pick up the pills when I have them ready, probably some time tomorrow,” Velrisa explains. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to give _that_ -” Sylnan gestures at the unconscious creature, “pills?”

“Figure it out. It’ll be worse if it doesn’t get them.”

Sylnan nods and without so much as another word Velrisa opens the front door and walks out. 

Br’aad and Sylnan stare at each other in silence for a few moments, still speechless from the events that had just transpired. Br’aad’s eyes dart towards the creature now awkwardly propped against the fridge. It lies on its side; the injured side positioned upward, above where Velrisa assumed its heart is. Br’aad glances back at Sylnan, who appears to be having a similar crisis, his fingers are tangled in his hair, his mouth hanging open, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes darting wildly around the room. 

“So, uh, where do we put it?” Br’aad asks hesitantly. 

Sylnan’s head whips over to look at Br’aad, he takes his hands out of his hair. 

“Uh… um… fuck. The couch? I guess? I don’t want the fucking thing to bleed on my furniture though.”

“I don’t really think we have a better option... unless you’d like to give up your bed,” Br’aad proposes, only somewhat joking.

“I definitely don’t want it bleeding on my goddamn sheets. It can stay on the couch.”

Sylnan rubs his temples with his right hand and sighs loudly. His jaw clenches. 

“You should get to sleep. I’ll stay up and make sure it doesn’t wake up and decide to make a mess of the living room,” he says, walking towards the kitchen. 

“What about all the blood? Are you going to clean that up yourself?” Br’aad asks as he reaches the bottom step of the stairs. 

“I’ll get it. You’re exhausted and it’ll give me something to do while I babysit whatever the fuck you brought home.”

Br’aad nods and heads the rest of the way up the stairs. He can barely make it up the stairs, his muscles protest as he drags his drained body up the final few steps. The adrenaline in his system had fully run its course, leaving him weak and unsteady. 

He peels his bloodied clothes off of his body and sits on his bed for a moment, still unable to process the events of the day. Images flash through Br’aad’s mind as he attempts to make sense of them. The sanguine stain in the snow, bright white canines against ginger fur, blood on tile, blood soaking into fur, blood staining the knees of Velrisa’s scrubs, blood soaking through his coat and onto his clothes. Blood, so much blood. How the hell is Sylnan going to clean up all that blood by himself?

He considers showering but decides against it. He’s too tired to do anything but sleep. He settles himself under his comforter, barely noticing the chill in the air, the creaking and whining of the trees outside, the way that the forest seemed to ache and cry out. Deliberately ignoring the wailing of the wind, Br’aad closes his eyes and drifts into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how i feel about the chapter title but i gotta get this out


	3. Beauty and the Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for brief mentions of animal death & some light violence. nothing worse than the podcast.

Sunlight streams through the window, peachy and gentle. Br’aad’s eyes open. He feels groggy, and his muscles protest as he sits up on his bed and stretches. He looks out the window; the sun is just coming over the treeline, he estimates it must be some time around nine or ten. 

He scoots to the side of his bed and looks down. His clothes are gone from where he’d left them before he’d fallen asleep. Sylnan must have been by and washed them. Either that, or he’d thrown them away. They might be beyond saving. 

Br’aad stands up to try and start making his way towards the shower. Immediately, he feels lightheaded, he feels weak and unsteady, and his stomach churns. He swallows as a wave of nausea rolls over him. His body must still be recovering from having been pushed as hard as it was.

Not bothering to put on any clothes, Br’aad steps into the hallway in nothing more than his underwear. It’s cold, very cold. The heat in the cabin isn’t stellar and Sylnan obviously hasn’t had the fireplace running. 

The hair on his body stands up. Despite the protesting of his body, he pushes forward. The bathroom is even colder. The tiles are smooth and unforgiving, the cold of the floor hits Br’aad’s skin and he instinctively recoils, placing his foot firmly back on the hardwood just outside the threshold. 

He forces himself to step back onto the tile. He smells of gore and sweat. He’s an absolute disgusting mess. He needs a shower. He reaches his arm in and turns the handle, praying that the hot water heater has decided it wants to work this morning. 

Waiting for the water to heat up, Br’aad sits down on the toilet and relieves himself. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but when he’d woken up that morning he’d desperately needed to use the restroom. That struck him as a bit odd. Br’aad isn’t particularly well-hydrated, so there isn’t usually much urgency to his morning routine. Now that he thinks about it, that was part of what had woken him up. He decides not to think too much about it. 

After taking care of his business, Br’aad washes his hands in the sink. The water is cold, which doesn’t bode well for his shower. He glances up at his reflection and his hands stop. The whole world stops. 

He understands why Sylnan thought he was dead. He looks terrible. His eyes are sunken, his face is dirtied, and his hair is tangled and stiff with dried blood. It looks like he tried to fight a gang of raccoons and lost. Badly. 

He turns the water off and turns around, not wanting to look his reflection in the eye. He takes the few steps toward the shower and gingerly, he places his left hand into the stream of water from the showerhead. To his surprise, the water is warm. Not hot, definitely not hot, but warm. He breathes a sigh of relief. 

Shedding his underwear, Br’aad steps into the shower. The water is warmer than the air, and Br’aad exhales contentedly. He stands there for a moment, letting the water warm his skin, watching the blood and grime swirl down the drain. 

He tries to wash the woods off of his skin and out of his hair, but it proves to be more stubborn than he thought. He steps out of the warm air of the shower for a moment to grab a wide-toothed comb. His hair is going to need a bit more care than his fingers alone can provide.

Stepping back in, he sets the comb down and picks up his bottle of shampoo. His eyes briefly settle on Sylnan’s bottle of 3-in-1, sitting menacingly on the shelf. More times than he’d like to admit, Br’aad has thought about throwing it away. Its presence next to his marginally fancy shower products upsets him. How dare such an abomination share a shelf with his good, respectable soaps? 

Sure. It’s economical. It saves money to buy one soap instead of three. It saves time to only have to think about one product while in the shower. Surely Sylnan must realize that it’s not doing his hair any favors? Surely he must notice how painfully _average_ it makes his hair?

Br’aad knocks the 3-in-1 over with the shampoo bottle in his hand, out of principle. It clatters lamely against the shelf. He exhales a short puff of air out of his nostrils and then squeezes a small glob of his shampoo into his palm. He places the bottle down and massages the shampoo gently into his hair, making sure to thoroughly lather the areas that feel as though they need the most attention. 

He steps back under the water and even more blood and grime flows down the drain. It surprises him just how dirty his hair is. He considers applying a second round of shampoo, but decides against it. He picks up the conditioner and works it into his hair as well. After applying it to a satisfactory extent, he picks up the comb and begins to carefully work any knots out of his hair. It takes him a bit of time to comb all the knots out, but eventually he’s able to run the comb fully through his hair without hitting any. Carefully, he sets the comb down and washes the conditioner out of his hair. 

This time, the water runs clear. A bit foggy from the conditioner, but fully unbloodied. Relieved that he doesn’t have to wash his hair a second time, Br’aad pumps some of his soap into his palm. As he cleans the conditioner, dirt, and blood off of his body, the sweet scent of rose fills the shower. 

After having thoroughly washed himself off, he steps out of the warm shower and back into the cold bathroom. He winces and quickly grabs at his towel, wrapping it around his body and absconding down the hallway and back into his bedroom. He dries himself off and then searches his drawers for something warm to wear. 

As far as he is aware, today is a Sunday, so there’s no reason to look presentable. Br’aad grabs his warmest flannel out of his closet and buttons it up. Immediately, the flannel blocks out the cold of the rest of the house. He searches around a bit for a pair of pants that aren’t too dirty. Usually, his room isn’t quite as messy as it is. However, it had just been winter break, and in that time he’d allowed himself to build a bit of a den. 

Finding a pair of pants along with clean underwear, he puts them both on. Thinking himself fully dressed, he starts to head for the door. Before he can reach it, he realizes that he forgot socks. He heads back into the room and scrambles around a bit to look for a pair of fuzzy socks to wear. He’s hoping to find his favorite pair (light blue, one with polka dots and one with stripes), but he doesn’t manage to find even a single fluffy sock. 

Disheartened, he picks up the first two socks he finds and puts them on his feet. They don’t match, not in the slightest. On his left foot is an argyle sock, light purple diamonds making business-casual patterns against a field of deep purple; on his right foot is a brilliant blue sock with dozens of happy, bright yellow rubber ducks. The purple sock is substantially longer than the blue sock, and if the difference weren’t hidden by his pants it would make his entire ensemble appear very lopsided. 

Br’aad exits out into the hallway and down the hall. He pauses for a moment, a pit forming in his stomach. Why does he feel so nervous? What is there for him to be nervous about? Shirt wet from his hair, he can’t help but notice how cold it’s making him. If he goes downstairs, he can ask Sylnan to turn the heat on. 

He presses forward. The stairs creak as he places his weight on them, protesting as he creeps down each wooden step. He peeks his head around the corner, looking into the living room. It’s dark. The sun hasn’t found its way into the room yet, and shadows still have their hold on the corners. Sylnan has his back pressed against the couch, his breathing is slow and steady and his eyes are closed. In the closet under the stairs, Br’aad can hear the washing machine humming. 

Despite the humming of the washing machine, the house is uncharacteristically quiet. It feels almost eerie. Br’aad’s eyes deliberately avoid the creature on the couch. Anxiety grips his chest. What if it died in the middle of the night? He doesn’t want to know. 

The growling of his stomach knocks him out of his anxieties. He feels like it’s been centuries since the last time he ate. Now that he thinks about it, his body feels terrifically weak and his brain is working at a quarter of its usual capacity. Not that that was anything particularly impressive to begin with. With haste, he moves toward the kitchen. 

Opening the fridge and peering inside, Br’aad feels nothing but disappointment. Right. That’s why he’d gone out to hunt in the first place. Nothing but expired sauces, old cheese, and the very dregs of his and Sylnan’s last hunt. He pushes the sauces aside, hoping Sylnan had maybe hidden a pop behind them for later. 

He does find something that isn’t a sauce. A glass bottle, unlabelled, filled with a mysterious amber liquid. The fact that the bottle is unlabelled piques his interest. Carefully, Br’aad takes hold of the bottle, dragging it out from behind the sauces. He unscrews the cap and takes a deep whiff.

Immediately, the scent of alcohol overpowers him. Whiskey. He winces and quickly screws the cap back on. He places it on the counter instead of back behind the sauces. He closes the fridge door and looks at it for a moment, contemplating. 

Of course he knows Sylnan drinks, that doesn’t mean he likes it. He glares at the bottle for a few moments. Thoughts whirl through his head. He’s very tempted to unscrew the cap again and just pour it down the drain. 

“Br’aad? You’re up?” Sylnan’s voice calls from across the room.

Br’aad jumps and his head whips around to look at Sylnan. 

“Yeah, I’m up. I was just looking for something to eat.”

Sylnan pushes himself up off of the floor and stretches his shoulders. Drowsily, he begins to shuffle over to Br’aad. Br’aad glances back over at the bottle, still sitting on the counter. He looks back at Sylnan. 

He picks the bottle up and opens the fridge door, keeping his eyes on Sylnan the whole time. Sylnan stops in his tracks. Shame crosses his face. He quickens his pace and grabs the bottle out of Br’aad’s hand. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, taking the bottle and tucking it under his arm. 

Br’aad doesn’t respond. 

“There’s not much to eat. Do you want me to try and pick you up something from the superette?” Sylnan asks, changing the subject.

“Can we afford that?”

“Who said I was going to buy anything?”

Br’aad crosses his arms over his chest.

“If you’re going to steal, steal from Walmart.” 

“Deal.”

Br’aad looks behind Sylnan and back over at the couch. A furry ginger arm sticks out from underneath a chenille blanket with geometric patterns and images of pine trees printed on the fabric. Its knuckles drag on the ground, claws ever so slightly poking out of the tips of the fingers.

Br’aad looks back at Sylnan. 

“I thought you said you didn’t want it to bleed on any of your stuff,” he says, more of a statement than a question.

Sylnan turns to look behind him. 

“Well… I… uh. I didn’t want it to get cold. It gets cold here at night.”

Br’aad quirks an eyebrow, but decides against pressing the issue. 

“I'm guessing it’s still… alive?”

Sylnan walks back to the creature, pulls the blanket back a bit, and presses his index and middle finger to its throat. A few moments pass, but eventually Sylnan removes his hand and gently places the blanket back over the creature’s head. 

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Br’aad breathes a sigh of relief. 

“If you’re going to the store I guess I’m on cat watching duty.”

“It’s your turn, it’s been two days.” 

“It’s been _what_!?” Br’aad cries. 

Sylnan blinks a few times.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No, I didn’t! It’s been _two days_? How long was I out for?”

“It’s Monday, Br’aad. Monday at uh,” Sylnan glances at the watch on his wrist, “nine thirty.”

“So like. A day and a half?”

“Yeah, about. You should finish up the cheese. You haven’t eaten, you need the energy.”

Br’aad stands there shocked for a moment. A day and a half? Why wasn’t Sylnan surprised by this? Had he really pushed himself that hard? It was almost impressive. Almost. 

Following Sylnan’s advice, Br’aad opens the fridge and pulls the block of cheese out of it. He places it on the counter and closes the door again. He grabs a plate out of the cabinet above him and places it gently on the counter. This plate is bright red, Sylnan’s favorite color. Most of their plates are different colors, a menagerie of kitchenware. Mismatched plates, mismatched silverware, glasses that refuse to stack together. 

He places the remainder of the block of cheese on the plate. Sylnan hands him a knife. The knife is much sharper than necessary for cheese. More suited for rending flesh from bone and making quick work of the internal organs of a deer, the blade of the knife feels awkward cutting through the semi-hard block of cheese. It cuts too easily, the slices end up being inconsistent and sloppy. 

In the end, Br’aad ends up with a small plate of uneven squares of cheese. It’s not much, but it’s enough to tide him over while he waits. He takes the plate over to the coffee table and sits down where Sylnan had just been sitting. 

“If you’re all settled, I’m gonna head out. Is there anything in particular you want me to get?” Sylnan asks, putting his coat on.

“Could you get some fruit?” Br’aad asks, not looking up from his plate. 

“Fruit? Anything in particular?”

“Whatever will fit in your pocket, I’m not picky.”

“Anything? Anything at all? So you don’t mind if I come back with an onion for you?”

“An onion isn’t a fruit, Sylnan.”

Sylnan’s mouth hangs open for a second. After a few moments of contemplation, he shuts it again. 

“I guess you’re right. So no onion. Any other requests?”

“Come back quickly, I’m withering away over here.”

Sylnan gives Br’aad a curt nod and a thumbs up. 

“Gotcha, I’ll be going then.”

“Have fun!”

Sylnan opens the door and a blast of cold air charges inside. The house feels even colder than before, Br’aad considers getting up and lighting the fireplace but decides against it. His joints are too stiff, his body too feeble.

The door shuts and the house is quiet again. Once again alone with the humming of the washing machine, Br’aad picks up one small slice of cheese and begins to bring it to his mouth. Before he can get it more than a few inches off the plate, he feels a furred hand clasp tightly to his throat. 

Claws digging into his skin, his heart pumping faster and faster, he lets out a strangled scream. The hand tightens, he feels the claws puncture his skin, minuscule drops of blood forming at the wounds they leave. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes. It hurts. The creature’s claws leaving tiny pinpricks in the delicate skin of his throat _hurts_. 

The hand isn’t clamped tightly enough to restrict his breathing at all, but his panicked, unsteady breaths cause the claws to dig ever so slightly deeper. He tries to steady himself, closing his eyes, taking in light breaths, counting to ten over and over again in his head. 

Surely Sylnan had heard him scream, surely he isn’t at the mercy of the now extremely conscious creature. Surely. What does it want? It doesn’t seem to want to kill him, if it wanted to kill him it would have already done so. The claws are so sharp, so honed, they could have sliced him open and left him bleeding and dying within seconds. But they didn’t. 

Instead, he feels the creature shift behind him. The claws stay firmly in place, not slipping a millimeter, pressing no deeper into his neck. Hot breath brushes against the side of his neck. Every hair on his body stands up. Tears roll down his cheeks, betraying his fear. 

The door swings wide open, the winter wind once against charging through the house, running rampant. The curtains billow, light makes its way into the room for the first time all morning. Sylnan stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the door. A rifle sits firmly in his hands, pointed directly at the creature. 

Gleaming in the light, Br’aad recognizes the weapon. The very same rifle he’d brought out with him that fateful evening, now pointed right at him. Unwaveringly. 

Br’aad knows Sylnan would never do anything to put him in danger. The gun pointed right in his face tells another story. The cocked and loaded rifle, more than capable of taking down a deer in a single shot, pointed directly at him, tells another story. 

Sylnan’s eyes spit fire at the creature, right down the barrel of the gun. The creature’s grip tightens; the claws dig deeper, a yelp involuntarily escapes Br’aad’s lips. A drop of blood trickles down the side of his neck.

“Let him go and I won’t blow your furry head off of your fucking shoulders,” Sylnan says through gritted teeth. 

Nearly immediately, the creature’s claws detach. Instead of pressing against the delicate skin of his neck, they instead move to his shoulder. He’s still held firmly in place, the creature’s strong arms securing him against its chest. 

The gun remains firmly pointed right where it is. Sylnan scowls. The creature doesn’t move. Nothing moves. Only snowflakes drifting in through the still-open door prove that time is still pressing ever-forward. 

Hesitantly, Br’aad feels the creature loosen its grip. Acknowledging defeat. Even so, it doesn’t let go, not fully. 

Sylnan’s grip on the gun tightens. Br’aad feels the creature release him, its arms moving to its sides. Even so, he feels claws latched into the fabric on the back of his shirt. Gripping onto the fabric, refusing to give up. 

Sylnan points the rifle down, adjusting his grip until it points harmlessly at the floor. Not breaking eye contact with the creature, he pulls the trigger. The gun clicks innocuously. Unloaded. It was unloaded. Br’aad lets out a sigh. Sylnan would never keep a loaded gun in his car. Sylnan would never put him in any danger. 

He hears a low growl from behind him and the claws in his shirt poke into the skin of his back. Sylnan reaches for the shelf next to him, his fingers clasping around the hilt of one of the many knives in the house. He holds it behind his head, muscles tensed, ready to throw it with as much force as necessary to destroy the creature in front of him. 

The growling abruptly stops. Quiet enough that for a moment Br’aad thinks he may have imagined it, he hears a whimper. A crack in what Br’aad now understands to be a facade. The creature is scared, terrified. Sylnan terrifies it. 

Br’aad sees Sylnan’s expression soften and his muscles relax. He puts the knife back down on the shelf. Breaking eye contact, Sylnan turns his back to the creature and closes the front door. The door clicks and only the sound of the washing machine fills the house. Nothing moves. 

“You don’t want to hurt him, do you?” Sylnan asks, turning back around to face the creature. 

Far more audibly than before, the creature whimpers. Br’aad feels the claws release their grip. Moments later, he feels something fuzzy and warm press against the back of his neck. Two ears flutter gently against his shoulders. The creature that had mere minutes before gripped him by the throat and threatened to kill him had just pressed its forehead against the back of his neck. 

Br’aad couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe because adrenaline was still pumping through his system, fucking with his brain. Maybe because there was something inherently ridiculous about a creature larger than he was trying to hide behind him from the kindest man he’d ever known. 

Br’aad’s unrestrained, mildly unhinged laughter startles the creature, causing it to scramble awkwardly away from him, searching for a spot in the house where it could be hidden from him and Sylnan. It chooses to clamber over the side of the couch, peeking out from behind it once it gets to the other side. 

Br’aad turns back after hearing the loud clattering noise the creature produces. From his position in front of the couch, he’s finally able to get a good look at it. Its eyes are wide, and a pleasant forest green. The color reminds him of pine trees, constantly persisting despite the harshness of the world around them. He sees that same fight in the creature’s eyes. 

It’s a fight that he recognizes, a fight he respects. The drive to keep living, keep moving, no matter the odds. It’s that drive that kept him moving out there in the woods. When he thought he was going to collapse, he kept fighting forward. 

Br’aad turns back to look at Sylnan. 

“I don’t think you’re going to make it to the grocery store today.”

“No, I don’t think so either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long to come out!! it’s my first semester at college and I’ve been terribly busy.
> 
> As an apology, this chapter is much longer than usual.


End file.
